Maintenance MVPD"Most Valuable Park Division"

        
This week by far has been my favorite week! I had the opportunity to work with the maintenance division and work hands on around the park from changing oil an air conditioner to using a leaf blowing and power cleaning a fountain.
          My first day I was given a tour around the shop, seeing the different departments within the maintenance division. They have the carpenter shop, painters shop, woodcraft shop, utilities and electrical shop. I spent most of my time with the utilities shop. They were welcoming and showed me the ropes of the building. The first day I was in the shop I was shown how to turn on light bulb without plugging anything into a socket. You take two of the same colors and twist the wires together black to black and white to white, you then stick the ends of the wires in a cap making sure it’s secured. Once that is done correctly your light bulb should automatically turn on. That was an awesome experience.
 

                                                Behind the scenes of The Famous Pool
         For two days we worked on the fountain in Washington Square located between Walnut and 6th Street. The fountain referred to as "the pool" by maintenance usually shoots up into the air about 8 feet and was only going about 4 feet up in the air. In the picture two guys named Will and Drew worked on finding out why the fountain was not at the correct height. I was able to help in being the eyes for both of them when things got a little complicated. We got to the root of the problem on day 2 by draining the fountain, taking apart the pipes and cleaning them out. We found papers and leaves clogging the pathway where the water flowed. After cleaning out the unwanted items out the pipes the fountain was back up and running. To fill up the fountain it takes a total of 6 hours.

"Hey Look Abraham's Looking At Us."

     As the days proceeded I got the opportunity to spend a day with the lead landscape architect for the gardens, placed all around Independence. Every Wednesday Mrs. Susan does work on some of the gardens with volunteers who come on their free time to help. Mrs. Susan educated me on different flowers and plants we would be working on, as well as educate me on some of the plants they have that people come from all over just to see. There were different variety of tools and how to use them for different jobs around the garden. We cleaned up the garden and was able to remove any unhealthy plants and let others plants have space to grow to their full potential.

 

"Dusty Miller"

Over all my experience with maintenance was pretty fun and very well taught. These guys showed me things that may not be thought of in a regular persons mind. If I had to choose so far I would love to keep helping maintenance every now and again. The experience is phenomenal and was a pleasure. It’s a lot of older guys who enjoy what they do and crack jokes to get themselves throughout the day.